Case Number 07564: Small Claims Court

Madea's Class Reunion

Every purchase you make through these Amazon links supports DVD Verdict's reviewing efforts. Thank you!

All Rise...

You'd think after 50 years, Tyler Perry's title character would have wised up. But no, that madwoman Madea is back to wreck havoc on her helpless high school class, and Judge Bill Gibron says it's a lot of farcical fun.

The Charge

Class is in session…and Madea's gonna teach you a lesson.

The Case

As a local hotel prepares to host the 50-year class reunion for the students
of Booker T. Washington High School, things are not going well for the staff.
The young-gun female manager is a stressed-out mess. Besides the guests, she has
to worry about her lover, who won't leave his wife and take up with her. In
addition, one of the maids is getting up in years, and constantly challenging
her boss on all decisions. Her desk clerk, Cora Simmons, is more interested in
saving souls than checking in customers, and a new bartender/bellman is just not
working out. But the uptight miss ain't seen nothing until Cora's momma, the
incomparable Mabel "Madea" Simmons shows up. She, along with that
no-good neighbor Mr. Brown, are part of the graduating class, and they're
guaranteed to tear up this hotel. Of course, other secrets are discovered and
personal problems revealed as the years melt away for the family and members of
Madea's Class Reunion.

Continuing to concentrate on the trials and tribulations of the modern black
experience in America, Tyler Perry's Madea's Class Reunion is not the
religious Animal House parody
you think it will be. The title promises a real romp through the urban
educational experience with everyone's favorite pot smoking, gun-totting
grandma. As he has in almost all his plays, Perry has hit upon a sensational and
solid character in his drag-act antics as Mabel "Madea" Simmons. He
uses the brash battleaxe as guide through the problems of people of color, no
matter the class, no matter the level of opportunity. Using the bumbling Brown
family as the stupid but sincere "saved" element of his design, and
the sloppy, scattered Simmons clan as the brood unbound, he dips through a
veritable whys-why of contemporary ills—divorce, death, drugs, infidelity,
and immorality—in preparation for his God, family, and faith
propaganda.

Some fail to fall into Perry's party line. They see him as a stunted scribe
exploiting an underserved niche market—the inner-city churchgoing
public—for his combination stand-up comedy act and prosetylization. But
the truth is that, when he wants to be, Perry can be very funny. He can also be
melodramatic, preachy, and so saccharine and sweet that diabetics need extra
doses of insulin after attending one of his shows. Madea's Class Reunion
is no different. More or less a farce played out in a local hotel, it introduces
us to the standard set of archetypes—the abusive husband, the trifling
whore, the self-righteous career girl, the unfaithful spouse, and the clueless
other half—and then lets Perry run interference between them all.

In Class Reunion, Perry actually plays two roles. The first is that
of a shiftless bellhop/bartender, and it's here where Perry shows his true
talent. Lightning fast on his feet, capable of ad-libbing with amazing comic
timing and wit, he never misses an opportunity to pull in the audience. One has
to say that the man is obsessed with The Color Purple. A lot of his jokes
and asides are pop culture references (especially the hip-hop and urban kind),
but you can't help but smile as he mimics Oprah Winfrey's Sofia, or Margaret
Avery's Shug. He also knows that the audience will only tolerate so much story
without Madea interacting with the narrative, so Willie is unceremoniously
dropped about a third of the way through, and our insane instigator arrives to
"tear it up."

While it may not be PC to say it, Madea is incredibly entertaining. She may
be a broad stereotype that demeans as many people as her character supposedly
uplifts, but you cannot deny Perry's ear for rhythms and realism. Perry uses
Madea as what her name suggests, a grandiose Greek Chorus. She is the audience;
she is the voice of reason and—occasionally—irrationality. She is
tradition and she is insight. Sometimes, she can be a bit on the evangelical and
preachy side. Indeed, there is an entire sequence in a restaurant that feels
like nothing more than Perry preaching to the spectators about forgiveness. The
play stops dead, the narrative drive derails, and Perry is up on his pedestal,
passing down some solid, if rather simplistic, advice about getting control of
your life. By the time he is done, he needs to pull out all the stops to get the
energy up again.

It is safe to say that Madea's Class Reunion is not as much fun as
her Family Reunion. The plot convolutions are fairly obvious (whenever a
character walks in who is not part of the usual Perry company, you can guarantee
they are a troublemaker or a mistress), and the long-awaited reunion is just
some dopey dancing by a couple of cast members. There is a very heavy-handed
quality to some of the exposition, as if Perry really is intent on driving his
point home, and many of the songs are just extreme vocal workouts. They lack the
color and conviction of the other music Perry has composed for his shows. Still,
if there is a trick to what makes Tyler Perry and his plays tick, it's this
considered and careful balancing of formula, expectations, and message.
Madea's Class Reunion may not represent the man, or his usually stellar
cast, in the best of all possible lights, but it still shows that the revival as
a theatrical experience is alive and well…and touring the nation to
sold-out crowds.

As stated before in the review of Madea's Family Reunion, we are
dealing with a videotaped play (with a few filmed inserts illustrating and
complementing the songs) that makes the big mistake of eliminating almost all
the audience interaction in the show. The crowd noises are turned down so low,
and the amplified cast are turned up so loud, that you can barely tell the show
is being performed in front of people. Also, we see the same post-song fade-outs
here, eradicating the applauses and appreciation of the crowd after every
number.

In all other ways, however, Lions Gate treats Perry's presentation with care
and consideration. Even though this is a taped performance, the 1.33:1
full-frame image is sharp and clear. Obviously helmed by professionals who
understood camera angles, framing and composition, the transfer treats us, the
home theater crowd, to a view the live audience could only have hoped for.
Equally important is the translation of the music, and it has to be said, it is
near perfect. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo soars with Gospel greatness. While
the songs do have their limits (no one claimed Perry was the Smokey Robinson of
spirituals), the performers deliver them with so much bravado that you can't
help but feel their musical presence.

As for bonus features, the DVD is outfitted with a Tyler Perry introduction
(all of 11 seconds long), a Bloopers and Outtakes featurette (20 minutes of
onstage mistakes and general cutting up) and a Selected Scene Commentary track.
Perry is passionate and informative when discussing his work, but the sparseness
of the content (he only looks at a few select sequences) makes it a real
disappointment. The photo gallery is nice, and the trailers clue us in on the
other Perry titles waiting to be explored. While it could have been much more
(how about a little Q&A with the rest of the cast…), this is a decent
digital package. Besides, as Shakespeare said, the play's the thing.

Toward the end of the show, Perry puts in a plot twist meant to set up his
next show—Meet the Browns. The
heretofore-undisclosed parentage of Cora seems so silly at first that you hardly
believe it to be true. But as you think about it, and the situations you've seen
in Madea's Class Reunion, you start to understand Perry's motivation. In
essence, he argues that a common thread—skin tone, social status in White
America, spiritual faith, etc., joins all people of color. That is why his work
is so popular. He's not leaving anyone out…except those not willing to
take his writing at face value. Madea's Class Reunion is no work of art.
But as populist amusements go, it is hard to deny.